XXVI
by the queen of slurking
Summary: 26 oneshots, an A to Z of Revenge.
1. Chapter 1

**So you might've seen that I'm doing this for **_**Pretty Little Liars.**_** I love these things – enough that I'm going to do three. I am taking suggestions for the rest of the alphabet, so if there's something you would like to see let me know.**

**Chapter 1: Anger  
>Character: Emily.<br>Quote: **_**Anger is a short madness. (Horace)**_

The anger takes over slowly at first. It seeps into her bones as a child, one who is still just a bit too young to understand this.

She tries to fight it for a little while, but she isn't strong enough, she doesn't know how, and it isn't as though her faceless foster family will show her what to do – sometimes she thinks she would barely be able to pick them out of a crowd, looks at them and sees a patchwork of people who won't stick together beyond next year. It's just a group of people cobbled together and told what to do.

People don't like her, she knows this. It's the result that she gets from her surname, the one that has mothers scramble to pick up their children and pull them away, the one that gets reproachful looks from fathers even though she didn't do anything. This doesn't matter though, because she is treated as though contaminated and infectious no matter where she goes, and soon enough she learns to accept the burning because she still doesn't know what it is but it's preferable to feeling her father's shadow guilt.

And one day she's trapped in juvie and bored stupid and she still has a good brain, she's smart, and so she leafs through books of old poetry. She's pretty sure that these are the big names, the Whitman and the Byron and the Wordsworth – of course it isn't as though there's a teacher to tell her these things, because half the kids in here cop an attitude with authority and the rest of the time they skate by on their behaviour, just waiting until their eighteenth and then they'll disappear.

(it's the magic number; once in the system always in the system, she's determined to break the mold)

Anyway, she deciphers all these words and lines of cramped print – they're cheap books, the kind that are easy to replace, because that's what this place is about, isn't it?

So yeah, she finally understands that her younger self was _angry_, and it's such a basic thing that she should have thought of it earlier.

And she's still angry, and the thought of that anger being a poison or acid is a good one, because poison tarnishes, acid corrodes. There's a memory – though in here, that memory gets dimmer by the day – of a grand house overlooking the one in which she and her father stayed.

For the first nights after her discovery she lies awake imagining the hallways of the grand house corroded, the flowers in the garden wilting and shrivelling up, cracks in the staircases and chunks of wall missing. She uses her imagination to fill in the blanks of the areas she doesn't know, and pictures someone tiptoeing down the hall, treading tentatively in case they misstep.

Because guess what – she's just read Poe and yeah, he's creepy as hell, but the ideas are still there. An entire house, a family, falling to ruin.

It's such a satisfying thought and she can't bring herself to feel badly that the house _and_ the family might succumb to ruin, and the best part is that if she uses her wits she'll be able to orchestrate it all.

They're the ones who put her in here and stole her life.

Later she learns that her father is _a)_ dead and _b)_ innocent. Her anger refuels and she wastes the money – not all of it, that would take too long – so, okay, she wastes a few thousand, let's call it making up for lost time. She's missed a decade of Christmas and birthdays, and the world has such pretty toys.

They entertain her for a few months but she's too smart and Nolan finds her too soon, and so she goes on her first acting job: a faintly sulky waitress at a New Year's do, and yet someone – ally of her father's, ally of hers – sees through it.

No matter. He's one to be spared, though actually he dies later and her anger is redoubled again.

To Japan, to fighting lessons and not-fighting lessons, and there's a boy there who has a similar tale. She doesn't care though, just focuses on the lessons and sulks the rest of the time, skulking to learn weakness and trying to remember the name of the Grayson boy so she can use him.

And back to Nolan, who says nothing but at least she isn't spontaneously smashing his crockery and decorations when the mood takes her so at least she's better, whatever that actually means.

So now she's got herself a house, just the one she wanted and it's actually kind of good that Nolan stepped in to buy it for her because he has so much money he never need hear the word no. Besides, she's still establishing all the documents she needs, so she can't really buy it for herself.

There's a secret room she used to hide in when she pretended to be a spy, and so she reopens it, lets it air out and equips it with the minimum. This room gives her a great view of the neighbours, so she can see when there's a balcony scene going on or, if she listens carefully, can make out the timbre of loud discussions and arguments. Not long after she comes back to the Hamptons, she spends time in there, shrouded by walls, and watches the woman who helped destroy her father as she stands on the balcony, not a care in the world.

Suppressing her anger is second nature to her now, so she does that and walks out to meet the rest of society, remembering the anger that has driven her here and practices her smiles.

She's pretty, well-educated (at least on paper; she taught herself a lot and money can get _really_ good tutors) and wealthy. There doesn't seem to be anything amiss with her, or if there does the people either don't notice or care. It's probably the former, she decides when she's back at home and her sandals have carved lines into her ankle, another physical reminder of where anger can bring her.

It can only work to her advantage.

(in the mirror she undoes her makeup and jewellery. welcome back)


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Bitterness  
>Character: Emily<br>Quote: **_**Fighting bitterness can be a full-time job. (Ira Sachs)  
><strong>_**Other notes: Spoiler for 4x10. Don't read if you don't want to know.**

It isn't until the divorce papers are signed that she realizes the bitterness is taking her over.

She'd never really thought about the aftermath of her revenge schemes, never quite understood what it meant for her personality while she was merely planning, but now she's so much closer, just needs a few more words, a few more pages and documents and –

Okay, so abducting her sister isn't the best way to go about things, but on the other level it kind of is, because it's what prompts Conrad to speak, and the documents prove that things he said under duress actually happened. So she's tarnished the relationship she and Charlotte have, and the girl doesn't even know it because for all her shortcomings, she's still a pretty good person. She has the innocence that Emily burned out of herself years ago.

And okay, so Aiden might not be enough after all, there might not be the happily-ever-after because she might never see Nolan or Jack again, so there's another couple of relationships dented.

But what do you know, she promises a summer of no revenge because her father has finally been exonerated, her mission is complete. Two relationships mended, she can see the relief in their eyes and it's like polishing off a layer of rust, leaving things shiny and clean and new.

Oh, but it couldn't last.

The bitterness of her life, the sheer inability to let go, is what's brought her here, and this time honesty is falling from her lips and _still_ there's threats to her.

(it's kind of a nice change, having a threat to deal with head-on, rather than stumble for answers and try to find loose ends. if there's one thing she can do well it's fight, even when her opponent is schooled in hand-to-hand combat,

because the other one was not schooled in anger and revenge and perfect control that lets you deliver three consecutive punches, and she's mastered all that because she had too much time and too much money and too much anger)

Anyway. She fights, tastes the blood in her mouth from where a punch to the jaw has split her lip, because once again she's out to protect her father and herself, Nolan and Jack. Maybe this is her sign, that the bitterness hasn't fully taken over her, because she doesn't hesitate to leap at her would-be killer and fight for her life. Maybe she's still not completely tarnished, because she wants to _live _dammit and she has not gone through the wringer for twenty years to be bested by some girl holding a grudge and brandishing a gun.

She can't stop to think on it though, because then there's falling and guns and her mind is a mess of thoughts, she's just working on adrenaline and body memory in a fatal dance. Somewhere in the back of her mind she's reminded of an old Poe tale, a house falling down, and she takes half a second to appreciate the bitterness here, the few pieces of the house that have become damaged.

It's all on her, it's always on her.

So they keep fighting, it's pure primitive anger and raw and feral and it's going to be fatal, she can already see this. Already there's been some blood spilt, her cheekbone has a rough cut across it and the taste of blood is in the air, if she cared to stop and notice it. The odds are a bit against her, she isn't armed and the opponent is, but then there is the second mistake: distraction.

Daniel is racing to her side, and her opponent is stupid, she shoots at him.

More blood lingers now in the air, more blood and it's a sign of weakness that the blood comes from him because for some reason, the opponent shot the wrong person and didn't just finish them both. This is a vulnerable position, any fool can see that –

oh, but here is Jack now, armed, and with the element of surprise. Emily is taken aback as he shoots twice, perfect aim to be fatal, and it's like letting the air out of a balloon because where there was a dangerous woman with a gun and a hunger for money and power and bloodlust, there's now just a woman slumping to the ground with holes in her chest and her gun faltering in her hand, her grip going slack.

It's symmetrical, a man and a woman, two bullets each to the chest. Daniel is the more important though, and the smell of blood is there, stronger than before, literally on her hands and she feels a little like Lady Macbeth because this was supposed to be the revenge-free summer and now the blood of two is on her hands.

She cradles him awkwardly at first, but he's quickly slipping away and so she decides, hell with it, and holds him a little more comfortably. Blood is caking on her palms, under her nails, and absurdly she thinks something about keeping them short from now on, broken glass digs into her knees where she's kneeling, but it feels like a punishment so she'll take it.

There's no antagonism here, she doesn't think he blames her for his death, but he should, because she does, and the best she can do is muster something about how there were some parts that were real.

This is real too, the blood and broken things and Jack standing there doing, well she isn't sure what because her attention is on the dying man before her, she can feel his heartbeat slowing and his eyes are losing focus, and this is just another way in which she's screwed up, tainted things.

(some days when she was little, newly in foster care, she felt a bit like a plague, the way her name could stop a conversation, could feel the various scorn and contempt and anger. she feels that again, knowing that someone else has died unnecessarily because of her)

Her father and Victoria enter the house, it occurs dimly that the door must've been left open, and she barely registers what comes next because she hasn't had to deal with bodies before, but somewhere she figures that they want answers and Victoria is kneeling next to her son, eyes like an accusation at her.

She's used to accusations though, used to the bitterness they bring and all that follows.

This empire of blood and ashes - it's all on her.


End file.
